


Humans Can Hunt Too

by astrangerfate, orphan_account



Series: Flesh, Blood & Heart [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Discipline, Other, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-27
Updated: 2007-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:50:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerfate/pseuds/astrangerfate, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Fine!” Sam said, exasperated. “You can have the front seat if it means that much to you!”</p><p>“No, he can’t,” John said. “I told you boys that you were both riding in the back. And you cause any problems, I’ll pull over.” He sent up a minor prayer that he wouldn’t regret enforcing his authority. Between the two of them, this could be one hell of a long ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humans Can Hunt Too

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first full story in the Flesh, Blood & Heart series. It does contain some plot with a bit of artistic license and the spanking of an adult Winchester by his irate father.
> 
> If you don't like that crap, you shouldn't be reading anything I post.

Marie Jennings hadn’t been in bed for more than a minute when the dripping started again. Drip…drip…

“Shit,” she groaned, turning the light back on and stumbling out of bed. Her little terrier panted at her feet. “You can’t go out now, Eileen, I’m just checking the damn faucet. All that money I paid the plumber, you’d think it would have…” she froze, standing in the bathroom door. The faucet wasn’t causing the noise. It was Eileen, hanging from the curtain-rod by the shower and dripping blood from the neck.

“Oh my God…” she whispered, and then she screamed.

***

“So what have we got?” Dean asked, and John was pleased to notice that his son was almost as excited as he was himself about being back on the job.

“String of apparent suicides in Conway, Arkansas,” Bobby said. “Young women, lived alone, slit their wrists in the bathroom.”

“How many?” The wheels in his head were already turning, and he didn’t even look up as his brother entered the room.

“Three in the last two weeks,” John said grimly. “Story in the local paper after the third made the police examine it a little closer. Now they’re thinking it may be a murderer.”

“But it’s our type of thing?” Dean asked, just to make sure. Not that he wasn’t sure, because with Dad it was always their type of thing. John Winchester didn’t look twice at anything that wasn’t distinctly unkosher.

John nodded. “Bobby’s got a contact in Arkansas. Doors and windows were all locked from the inside, nothing tampered with. Security videos at the second one showed nothing. But the coincidence is just a little too much to believe.” He hefted his bag, obviously enjoying having the full use of his arm again. “You boys are ready to go?”

“Yessir,” they chorused.

“Shotgun,” Dean called, smirking as he headed out the door.

“You forgetting something?” John called after him, and Dean stopped in his tracks. He considered the words for a moment before the meaning dawned.

“Oh.” At least he looked slightly embarrassed. And truth be told, John couldn’t blame him for being ready to go.

He came back inside and offered his hand to Bobby. “Thanks for helping us out, dude,” he said, and Bobby grabbed him, pulling him into a tight hug.

“You take care of your daddy, boy,” he said.

“Yessir,” said Dean, looking uncomfortable but obscurely pleased by the hug.

Bobby hugged Sam next, and Sam graciously hugged him back. “And you look out for those two knuckleheads,” he ordered.

“I will,” Sam promised. “And thank you, Bobby.”

“Bobby,” John nodded, and the hunter clapped him on the back.

“Good to see you, Johnny. You take care of both those boys. And this time don’t try to be so stubborn.”

“And you stop trying to be a jackass,” John said, his temper starting to rise, but then they both broke into a laugh.

“You keep in touch, now,” Bobby warned, and they trouped outside.

“Shotgun!” Sam yelled, racing to the front of the Impala, and John was reminded of his sons ten years ago.

“That’s not fair, I called it back inside!” Dean yelled back. John wondered how many times his sons had argued over who was driving—and how they’d ever gotten anywhere as a team—before realizing this was relief they were feeling at all being together again, all being alive, and the demon temporarily thwarted.

“Enough,” he said as Dean shoved Sam out of the way and Sam stamped on his older brother’s foot. “You’re both riding in the backseat until I say differently. You boys understand me?”

“I can’t ride in the back, my legs are too long!” Sam protested.

“I’m older, I always ride in the front,” Dean shot back. “And my legs are plenty long.”

“You’re both in the backseat and I don’t want to hear another word about it,” said John. _How the hell were they driving him crazy when he hadn’t even put the key in the ignition?_ “Dean, you’re behind me. Sam, you can push the front seat up all the way. And Dean, I don’t want to hear it. You’re too old to be having this argument with me.”

“I’m too old to be sitting in the friggin’ backseat,” Dean muttered, but John ignored it. He wasn’t arguing directly, so there was no point in addressing it just yet. Of course, if the attitude got to be a problem…

“How long is the drive?” Sam asked, sliding into his seat.

“Shouldn’t take me more than fifteen hours,” John said, knowing that this would illicit a groan from both sons.

“Well, maybe we can do it in two days instead and Dean and I can take turns riding shotgun?” Sam suggested.

“We don’t have the day to waste, Sam,” John said. “We’ll be in Conway tonight.”

“Oh.”

Dean got into the car, slamming the door and glaring at his little brother.

“Fine!” Sam said, exasperated. “You can have the front seat if it means that much to you!”

“No, he can’t,” John said. “I told you boys that you were both riding in the back. And you cause any problems, I’ll pull over.” He sent up a minor prayer that he wouldn’t regret enforcing his authority. Between the two of them, this could be one hell of a long ride. He backed out of the driveway and drove off into the rising sun.

***

Dean woke early, probably because Sam had cocooned himself in the quilt and Arkansas in January was cold. He got out of bed as quietly as possible and took a long hot shower. Putting on his jeans, he returned to the bedroom. John was sitting at the little table, reading a newspaper.

 _“Pleasantville Times?”_ Dean asked.

“There was another one two nights ago,” John said bitterly. “A Marie Jennings. They just found the body last night. And they’re not considering it’s self-inflicted. Her dog was dead too.”

“In the bathroom, right?”

“That’s right.” John sipped the coffee he’d taken from the continental breakfast. “Something sounding familiar?”

“Well, yeah,” said Dean. “There’s an urban legend that goes something like that. Sammy might remember it better than I do.” He wrenched the curtains open, temporarily blinding himself.

“Mmmph,” Sam groaned, wrapping a pillow around his head.

“Rise and shine,” said Dean dryly. “You remember that one story about the leaky faucet?”

“What the hell, man?” Sam croaked, still clutching the pillow, face buried in the sheets.

“You know the one,” his brother said. “Where the girl lives alone with her dog, and she’s got a leaky faucet. So she gets up to go turn it off, and the dog licks her hand. But when she gets to the bathroom, the dog’s strung up and dripping blood?”

“So it was the guy who licked her,” Sam said, sitting up. “Right.”

“Yeah. Well, another girl died, and her dog was dead too. Is there anything else you remember about that story?”

“Uhh, no, Dean. It’s a stupid story.”

Dean frowned. “Is the girl supposed to die after that?”

Sam paused. “No,” he said. “No, she doesn’t die, remember? There’s a note, sometimes it’s written on the mirror in the dog’s blood, sometimes it’s on her pillow. It says _humans can lick too._ She sees the note and knows that she was licked by the killer, and if she’d looked down or turned on the lights he would have killed her too.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s not this type of thing,” Dean said.

But John was shaking his head, leafing through his journal. “How does the dog die?”

“It’s skinned,” said Dean, at the same time Sam said, “They slash it’s throat.”

“But it ends up in the bathroom?”

“Yeah, it’s tied to the curtain rod and it’s dripping into the bathtub or on the floor or something,” Sam explained, and Dean nodded in agreement.

“Okay,” John said, finding the page he was looking for. “I think we’re hunting a Ludio Demon.”

“The hell is that?” Dean asked, leaning over to see the picture. It was an attractive young man trapped in a Key of Solomon.

“They take on specific roles to play out,” John explained. “Could be anything. Sometimes they can play a role for several years…a boyfriend for example. They usually take the form of a young man. Anyway, they feed on human blood. Can go years without it…but sometimes they apparently take only days. And they’re usually fitting into some sort of archetype, a set routine…sounds like this one’s been playing out his own little version of that story.”

“Well, how do we know where it’s going next?” Sam asked, reluctantly leaving the bed to bend over the journal as well.

“We don’t,” said John. “But wherever it is, it’ll play into the story. So a single girl, living alone in her apartment. Maybe with a dog, but we don’t know if the other victims had one. So…a leaky faucet…”

“In some versions, she’s had a leaky faucet for a few days,” Sam said helpfully. “And she’s even called the plumber about it, so she gets really angry when it’s still leaking in the middle of the night.”

“What are you saying?” John asked.

“Just maybe if we checked with the building superintendents about complaints to the plumbing…there could be a connection,” Sam said.

John nodded. “Good plan,” he said. “You can interview them this morning, while Dean and I talk to the families.”

Sam nodded, trying not to be so excited that John trusted him to do it on his own. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll shower and get right on it.”

The first man Sam talked to was in charge of the apartments where Lana Turner, the first victim, had lived.

“I’m Ian Gillen,” Sam said, smiling. “I’m just asking a couple of routine maintenance questions.”

So he learned some useless information—fire marshal’s approval, elevator license—before he asked about the plumbing.

“Well, I did have one complaint,” the manager said thoughtfully. “About two weeks ago from Apartment 4C—” His voice faltered as he realized the significance of the number. “From Lana Turner. So I called the plumber for her, they came down and said there was nothing wrong with it. And she killed herself the next day.”

Sam paused. “I understood that they thought it was murder,” he said casually.

“No,” said the man firmly. “It couldn’t have been. The police have been through all the security tapes, and the doors were locked from the inside. The deadbolt was thrown, for Christ’s sake. She had to have done it herself. Now these other girls, maybe, but not Miss Turner.”

“I—I see,” said Sam. “Well, thank you for your time…”

The manager of the next building gave an almost identical story. Dana Bledel had complained of a leak. The night before she died, a man had assured her there was nothing wrong with her pipes.

So it was with a growing certainty that Sam asked the manager of Pearce Heights if she’d had any complaints about the plumbing in recent weeks.

“Well, two, just recently,” she said. “Catie Harris—you know, the girl who died—but there wasn’t anything wrong with her sink. She swore it was dripping though. And now Susan Bailey in 2A is complaining about the same thing, but we’ve got a man coming to look at it today.”

“What time?” Sam asked.

The woman frowned. “Well, I believe between four and five,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

Sam laughed. “Oh, just making idle conversation,” he said lightly.

But after he left the building, he returned and took the elevator to the second floor. It was a Sunday afternoon and he could hear the television in Apartment 2A…soap opera recaps. Looking around quickly, he spilled a thin line of salt across the doorway. He sat against the window in the hall, taking out a newspaper and pretending to read.

Before too long, a man in a heavy white uniform came up and knocked on the door. It was opened and he stepped inside, completely disregarding the salt. Sam breathed a sigh of relief…at least the plumber couldn’t be the one killing these women.

He waited for half an hour or so, just to make sure, and then the plumber came out. “Thank you so much for the drink, Miss Bailey,” he said, smiling. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything wrong with it.”

“Oh, no bother,” she said, and Sam noticed that she was a tall, thin blonde with legs that went straight up to her eyes… He tore his own eyes away, focusing on the carpeted floor.

“And…I’m sorry, but is there a reason you have this on your floor?” he asked, toeing the line of salt curiously.

“No,” she said, surprised, and Sam decided to get out. He went to interview the last manager anyway, although he knew what he would hear: Marie Jennings had complained about a leaky faucet, but there was nothing wrong with it.

***

“So it has to be Susan Bailey,” he explained. “She fits the pattern perfectly.”

“A Ludio needs something personal to enter a dwelling without unlocking the doors,” said John. “Anything belonging to the victim. A hair, a fingernail, blood.” He paused. “Tell me about this plumber.”

“Totally normal, don’t worry,” Sam said confidently.

“Then it’s probably someone she knows,” John said. “Some link between the victims. Ideally we’d be able to pinpoint him and surprise him at home, but we’re not taking any chances. We’ll stake out the place tonight.”

His sons nodded agreement.

“Wish we knew who he was…now you’re sure about that plumber, Sam?”

“Positive.”

“A Ludio’s a tricky sonuvabitch,” John said. “Only thing you can do to him is exorcise him, and only with certain Judaic rites. Nothing Christian has an effect. We’ll want to trap him if at all possible. So one of us has to get inside the apartment before he arrives and get a Devil’s Trap set up inside. Any suggestions?”

“It was easier when we were kids,” Dean said. “Sammy could just pretend he had to go to the bathroom.”

***

‘So why is it just Judaic exorcisms?” Sam asked as they made their way up the stairs t the second floor. “I don’t feel like Dad told us anything about this.”

“It’s a need-to-know basis, Sammy,” Dean reminded his little brother. “That’s just how the man works.”

“Well, it sucks. We deserve to—” Sam started, but Dean put a finger across his lips.

“Shh! Here we are!” He knocked quickly on the door.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Sam said sincerely as Susan opened it, all traces of the salt having been swept away. “We just moved in down the hall and we locked ourselves out. Anyway, Mrs. Goldman isn’t in her office so we can’t get our key, and my brother really needs to go to the bathroom. Is it okay if he uses yours?”

Susan had heard about the other deaths, of course, and Sam saw a flicker of fear in her eyes. Strangers knocking on her door after dark….

“I mean, I can try to wait until we drive to a Walgreen’s or something,” Dean said, putting a note of urgency in his voice.

Susan looked at Sam. “You were sitting over there reading earlier,” she said. “I’m Susan Bailey.”

“Sam Swanson, 2B,” Sam says. “And my brother Dean.”

Dean smiled in a pained sort of way. “Go ahead, it’s the door on the left,” Susan said, moving out into the hall. Dean jumped inside the apartment while Susan stood by the open doorway, talking to Sam. He pretended not to notice that she was fingering her cell phone.

“And yeah, that’s my story,” she said with a smile. “But I really do love it here in Conway.”

“Glad to hear it,” Sam said, smiling back. It wasn’t too hard to smile at the blonde. Dean reemerged from the bathroom, slipping a piece of chalk back into his pocket.

“Thanks a lot,” he said earnestly, and Susan grinned at them both.

“Oh, it’s really fine,” she said.

“Well, we’re just down the hall, so if you ever need us…” Sam said helpfully.

“Right,” Susan said.

“Well, we should probably go see if Mrs. Goldman is back,” Dean said, and they headed for the stairs. They stopped at the landing where John was waiting for them.

“Under the bathmat,” Dean said proudly. “There’s no way any demon’s getting past that honey.”

“Good,” Sam said. “I wonder how long we’ll have to wait.”

John shrugged. “It’s anyone’s guess. Could even be tomorrow, or the next night. Could be no one’s even coming for Susan. And of course if it’s not tonight, we spend tomorrow figuring out a connection between the known victims so we can find the demon.”

“I hate stakeouts,” Sam groaned.

“And that’s why we want to figure out who the demon is,” John said. “One hell of a lot easier, much less risky, and we don’t have to get Susan suspicious about a thing.”

“It’s going to look funny if someone takes the stairs and sees three men sitting on the landing listening for a scream,” Sam groused again after a minute.

“No one takes the stairs—our nation’s grossly obese,” Dean scoffed.

“Shh!” John hissed. “Listen!”

Water ran in the overhead pipes for a few seconds. Shut off. Ran again. Shut off. Ran again.

“She’s testing the faucet,” Dean whispered. “It’s leaking again.”

Sam felt his blood run cold with the familiar fear of the hunt.

“Let’s go, now,” John said. They moved quickly but silently to stand outside the door to Apartment 2A.

“Dammit,” a woman’s voice said clearly. “I told that idiot—” The rest of her sentence was lost as the water ran again, then shut off again.

Muffled sounds from behind the door indicated that Susan was getting ready for bed. Sam had the fleeting thought that if it was weird for three men to sit in a stairwell, it was infinitely weirder for three men to listen at a door. He really wished that Susan lived in a house instead of an apartment.

“Anyone’s guess,” John said quietly.

“Should I pick the lock just in case?” Dean asked. “So we’ll be ready?”

“You do it quietly,” John ordered.

 _Of course he’ll do it quietly, he’s not stupid,_ Sam wanted to say.

“Yessir.” And Dean did. He was fairly expert at lock-picking.

They waited as he ran a credit card through the space. “No deadbolt,” he announced. “Just a chain lock. Sam?”

Sam stepped forward and opened the door as far as it would go. He slipped his thin hand through, held the door close against his wrist and began twisting. A moment later the lock popped out and the door slid open.

“Where did he learn to do that?” John asked, almost forgetting to keep his voice quiet.

“College,” said Dean. “It’s better not to ask.”

John decided to take his oldest son’s advice.

“Should we wait inside?” Dean asked, and John shook his head.

“Ludio won’t use the door to come in, and we don’t want Susan seeing us on her way to the bathroom,” he said.

“Right.”

They waited, door slightly ajar, listening carefully. Sam’s legs had fallen asleep when he heard the drip…drip. Everyone’s heads jerked up.

“Jesus Christ,” Susan muttered. There was the sound of springs squeaking as she left her bed, footsteps padding down the carpeted floor.

The bathroom door creaked open, there was a terrified scream, and the Winchesters were already inside. Dean grabbed Susan, dragging her out of the way, as Sam stared in shock at the man in the Devil’s Trap.

“Sam! The rite!” John barked, as his son said nothing.

Coming to his senses, Sam began to speak. “Qui habitat…”

The demon writhed in pain, jerking convulsively before being summoned to the mouth of hell.

“It’s okay,” Dean said, patting Susan’s arm awkwardly as she freaked out.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” she asked.

“Saving your life,” Dean said, mildly pissed that this was the thanks he got.

“Oh my fucking God,” Susan said, and started crying hysterically.

Dean led her to the sofa and told her to sit down. He handed her Kleenex from the box on the coffee table, kept patting her shoulder until she got her breathing mostly under control.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked finally, blowing her nose once again. “And what the hell was…”

“We’re professional ghostbusters and that was a Ludio Demon,” Dean said bluntly. “The one who’s been killing all those girls. But my geek brother’s in there exorcising him right now. Me, I can’t pronounce it as well. I’m better at shooting things.”

He smiled encouragingly, and Susan nodded. “I’m not sure I believe you,” she said faintly. At that moment, however, Sam finished the exorcism and the sounds of the demon being exiled to hell were readily apparent.

“Anyway, we, uh…don’t actually live across the hall. And you might want to think about installing a deadbolt. But you shouldn’t have to worry about the demon anymore,” Dean said as his father and brother joined them.

“So there are things out there that…hunt people?” Susan asked shakily.

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it,” Sam said. “Humans can hunt, too.”

John gave her a card with his cell phone number on it. “Don’t call him, call me,” Dean advised, scribbling his own number on the back. “I pick up my phone.”

As they made their way out of the apartment building, John rounded on Sam. “What the hell was that?” he asked, grabbing Sam’s arm and forcing him to stop.

“What the hell was what, Dad?” Sam asked back, louder than was really respectful.

“What took you so long to start the damn exorcism?” John growled.

Dean, aware that this could escalate into another screaming match in the parking lot, dropped back a pace so that he was standing beside the two of them, hoping they would both shut up. They merely ignored him.

“That was the fucking plumber!” Sam yelled. Without another word, John spun Sam around and landed four quick smacks to his backside.

“You don’t use that tone with me, Samuel,” he reminded. “And would you like to tell me how that was the plumber when you assured me that he had nothing to do with it?”

“Well, he didn’t mind crossing a line of salt—” Sam started, and John nailed him on the behind again.

“That’s because salt has no effect on Ludio Demons,” John said angrily. “Why the hell would you just assume something like that?”

“Because you never tell us anything!” Sam exploded. “You don’t trust us at all, with all this need-to-know crap like we’re ten years old! You can’t expect us to know stuff like that if you never tell us shit!”

“I have had it with that attitude, Sam!” John yelled, and he dragged Sam over to the bench in front of the apartment complex.

“Wait, Dad, stop it,” Dean said suddenly, running over just as John started to tug a resisting Sam over his lap.

“Not now, Dean,” John said testily.

“Dad, he’s right!” Dean said. “You didn’t tell us anything about the Ludio, and we can’t do a good job just following orders blind. It doesn’t work like that. And you can’t blame him for not knowing things you decided weren’t important enough to tell him.”

Sam had stopped struggling to hear what Dean was saying. “I’m sorry about the attitude, sir, but that wasn’t fair,” he agreed.

John sighed and let go of Sam’s arms. “You’re right,” he said. “That was unfair of me.” Sam got up slowly, rubbing his bottom and looking incredulously at his father. He paused for a moment, then said slowly, as if it pained him, “You boys have been hunting without me for a year. You’re old enough for me to tell you these things. It’s just hard for me to think of you that way, when I’m used to protecting you and not giving you problems that were too dangerous.” He cleared his throat. “And there won’t always be enough time to tell you everything. And there will be situations when we’re fighting something and our lives are at risk and if I shout an order you need to follow it without asking questions. But for now…I’ll try to let you know anything I know.”

“Thanks, Dad,” said Dean. A moment later: “So, Dad, you know how you said that we’re older now?”

“Huh,” John grunted.

“Well, maybe it’s occurred to you that I’m 27 and Sam’s 23 and we’re just a little too old to be spanked?”

“Don’t push your luck, buddy,” said John in a warning tone of voice.

Remembering the last time they’d had this discussion, Dean let it go. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“Let’s get out of here,” Sam suggested diplomatically. “I could use some sleep before we leave.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Dean agreed hastily, running to stand by the Impala. Sam let his brother have the front seat, realizing that he could stretch out in the back and decrease the pressure on his stinging rear.


End file.
